The Yoga Path for a Career Devotee

For everyone who believes in living a life of discipline, yoga is the natural choice for keeping fit. It is also a natural choice for anyone who believes in the idea of sustainability. Let’s face it; whether you like it or not, your career circumnavigates around the major portion of the time that you have all throughout your life.

At present, we talk about scenarios like work- life balance, spirituality at workplace, and employee engagement. What makes these issues seem prominent is the increasing focus on numbers and the strut for keeping ahead of times. So much is the pressure at times that people often forget that they are a HUMAN resource.
So the other day a 21 year old Facebook friend posted, “He is Feeling Lost”, not quite sure about what that meant you presumed it was about a recent breakup. You would have ignored the status update if only the second one wouldn’t have flashed in a matter of seconds. The same friend writes, “Please tell me a five minute method to de-stress..need some break from work”. So you get back to him on phone and here is what you plan to tell him on phone. Learning from experience and being close to the path of Yoga, you take up this as an opportunity to counsel and advise your friend who claims that he is LOST, on the path of YOGA.

1. Jnana Yoga: The word ‘Jnana’ or ‘Gyana’ means knowledge. The path, therefore, is the one that establishes the importance of Knowledge of self and circumstance, wisdom, and introspection. No matter in what field you are ‘Knowledge path’ is the first path that you need to travel for becoming a master.

2. Bhakti Yoga: Bhakti or devotion can be inferred as a path of perseverance and hard work. You need to be true towards the career you choose and put in the required effort before you can deem yourself worthy of any reward. Half-hearted methods are never rewarded. You will need to commit yourself totally to your chosen profession.

3. Karma Yoga: Action they say, always speak louder than words. Going by that adage it must be true then, that the value of an act is far greater than the value of words. In a corporate scenario, as an employee, what matters is what you do. The rest is all hearsay.

4. Raja Yoga: The highest path of yoga that emphasizes on the importance of meditation is Raja Yoga. As far as your job is concerned, no one is asking you to sit in a contemplative, meditative mode all day long, thinking that some magic trick would suffice to complete your work. But yes, you need to think profoundly about how the work will be done and what will it impact.

Those who take up ‘Yoga’ as a subject and not a form of exercise, know that yoga is not merely a union of the mind and the body. Entwined in the amalgamation of these two is the binding force that we know as the soul. Similarly when it comes to work, it is not all about your physical presence and your mental presence. It is also about how willing you are to be present and provide help. Your act has to be SOULFUL!